"It is time to close the gate."
Translation:È ora di chiudere il cancello.
24 Comments
Can someone please explain if there's a specific time to put an article like "di" in front of infinitives I have yet to find a method to this madness. Per Favore
I would also like to know this. And also, which article do we need, "di," "a," "per"?
Agreed. There is simply no teaching, is there? It is so frustrating, and a waste of valuable time.
I am still hoping someone will explain when to use "di" or "per" or "a" before an infinitive. Does anybody know if there is a rule or if it is idiomatic?
It's to do with what verb is used to introduce the infinitive. I think you do have to learn it case-by-case - here are some links to help:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/6060401 http://italian.about.com/od/verbs/a/aa031908a.htm
"Ora" here is the time of day, as in "It's late, it's time to close the gate", while "tempo" is more generic, as in "It's autumn, it's time to bring out the coats". It's not wrong to use tempo here, it just has a more formal or literary feel to it.
Point taken (and thanks) f.formica but if it's not absolutely wrong why was my: "È il tempo per chiudere la porta" marked wrong? And porta can mean gate can't it? I take it that cancello maybe refers in particular to those remote control things some folks have but without any context I couldn't know DL was thinking of that. I haven't reported this as possibly wrong since I'm replying to you, a mod. all the best.
I think it has more to do with "per": it's mostly used to introduce purpose (or a medium) so in this case it goes to mean "it's the time (it takes) to close the gate".
Porta can indeed mean gate, at least in some instances, like the city gates; the difference in Italian has more to do with its appearance than anything, as "porta" generally refers to a single piece and "cancello" to a composite structure (e.g. steel bars) so you can usually see through a "cancello", while you can only see through the keyhole in a "porta". That's hardly the case for the city gates though.
1729
È il momento di chiudere la porta was not accepted. An almost identical sentence, with cancello instead of porta, was offered as aon official correct translation. I guess "porta" here should be fine, but it is not (yet) in the coded set of accepted answers.
- 2018
I think it must be the 'il' tempo because i put 'è il tempo di chiudere il cancello' and was marked wrong but given 'è tempo di chiudere il cancello' as correct.
È il tempo di chiudere il cancello. Marked wrong. I guess "il tempo" is not grammatically correct. Any native Italian speakers input appreciated!
In following an example from before, I wrote "E' arrivato il tempo di chiudere il cancello" and was marked wrong. Va bene, but I was wondering if my translation would work in speech in Italy.
I don't believe so. "fermare" is to 'close' in the sense of bringing something to an end, while "chiudere" is to close in the sense of shutting something.
C'è ora di chiudere il cancello. Why can't you say it like this?
- 1044
The dictionary hints for "to close" are so far away from a correct answer it's laughable. I really hope Duo either corrects the hints or just gets rid of them entirely, because they are so wrong so much of the time, they are not only not helpful, they are outright misleading. I hardly ever use them because they cannot be trusted.
duolingo's idiosyncrasies has made learning a language more frustrating than productive
